{"id":2015,"date":"2016-10-30T11:22:20","date_gmt":"2016-10-30T15:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=2015"},"modified":"2016-10-30T11:22:20","modified_gmt":"2016-10-30T15:22:20","slug":"justin-ross-harris-the-defense-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2016\/10\/30\/justin-ross-harris-the-defense-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Ross Harris: The Defense Begins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The defense began their case last week and it would appear that there are several inconsistencies that they are focusing on.\u00a0 Maddox Kilgore got his opportunity to question lead detective Phil Stoddard about many of the bombshell allegations he made during the July 2014 Probable Cause Hearing:<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xWcpDEyrZpg\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<p>Refuting Stoddard\u2019s claim that Harris Googled the phrase \u201chow long it takes a dog to die in a car,\u201d lead defense attorney Maddox Kilgore said the veteran investigator knew it wasn\u2019t true but swore under oath that it was.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<p>Stoddard accused Harris of visiting a \u201cchild-free\u201d website less than two months before his son\u2019s death; this initially was introduced by the prosecution as evidence of a motive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<p>Boring didn\u2019t mention the child-free site during his opening statement, suggesting the state had backed off one of its most explosive claims. But last week one of Harris\u2019 co-workers, called by the prosecution, revealed he had directed Harris to that subreddit as a joke. Harris had not sought out the group, as implied by Stoddard.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<p>\u201cIt was made up by the Cobb police department,\u201d Kilgore said in his opening statement earlier this month.<\/p>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<p>Stoddard\u2019s claim that Harris showed no emotion after his son\u2019s death was among the potential contradictions that were addressed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s just not true,\u201d Kilgore said in his opening, which included dashboard cam footage of Harris wailing in the parking lot of Akers Mill Square just moments after he said he found Cooper\u2019s lifeless body.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<p>On Friday, the state showed police video of Harris before, during and after he\u2019s interviewed by Stoddard. He is calm and somewhat chatty during the interview. While alone, he can be seen alternately pacing, wailing and taking deep, sustained breaths.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<p>Whether the grief is real or manufactured is a call the jurors will have to make. Kilgore has already said Stoddard presented an incomplete account of Harris\u2019 behavior that day.<\/p>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<p>Stoddard was also grilled on his claim that the \u201cstench of death\u201d emanated from Harris\u2019 SUV. The implication being that Harris knew his son was dead but ignored the smell.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<p>Two other Cobb police officers testified they also smelled an odor they associated with decomposition. But neither made note of the stench until they filed supplemental reports about a year later after consulting with Stoddard.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<p>Cobb\u2019s former chief medical examiner previously testified that Cooper had not been dead long enough for there to be a smell of decomposition. Instead, there would have been a stale smell mixed with urine.<\/p>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<p>Stoddard has walked back one incriminating claim at a pre-trial hearing in August, though not by choice. Stoddard had testified that, when he returned to his car at lunchtime on the day he left Cooper strapped inside, Harris was \u201call the way inside the frame. \u2026 He\u2019s in there. He has a clear view.\u201d If true, Harris must have known at the time that his dead son was inside the car.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<p>But surveillance footage from the Home Depot Treehouse parking lot, where Harris worked, showed that he could not have looked inside the SUV because his eyes remained above the roof line. At the August hearing Stoddard acknowledged that Harris\u2019 head \u201cwas above the car.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">The defense began their case last week and it would appear that there are several inconsistencies that they are focusing on.\u00a0 Maddox Kilgore got his opportunity to question lead detective Phil Stoddard about many of <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2016\/10\/30\/justin-ross-harris-the-defense-begins\/\" title=\"Justin Ross Harris: The Defense Begins\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":325,"featured_media":2016,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[1327,260,705,1328,163],"class_list":{"0":"post-2015","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethies-bits","8":"tag-defense","9":"tag-hot-car-death","10":"tag-justin-ross-harris","11":"tag-maddox-kilgore","12":"tag-trial","13":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2015"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2017,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2015\/revisions\/2017"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}